Southwest of Shanghai, about three hours by bus, is the provincial capital city of Hangzhou. The city stands at the foot of a range of hills, the Xitanmu Shan (“Eye of Heaven Mountains”), and on the shore of the famous Xi (“West” ) Lake, historically celebrated for its beauty and carefully preserved as a scenic district and tourist attraction. The silk industry, a major hydro-electric project southwest of the city, a Caterpillar tractor plant, and the industries of tea processing, grain-milling, and cotton and hemp manufacturing, all contribute to the vibrancy of Hangzhou.
Hangzhou is also home to Zhejiang University, one of the top-ranking research institutions of higher learning in China. With 331 academic and Master’s programs and 283 Doctoral programs, it has a student body of 39,000. It is also the University where for the past three years NC State has had a summer study abroad program. This connection and Hangzhou’s appeal as one of China’s most beautiful cities are the reasons it is the second stop of our expedition.
PERSPECTIVES FROM THE QUARANTINE ROOM
The concern that we Americans might be carriers of the H1N1 virus (no one calls it swine flu here) did not end once we got past our welcome at the airport by the temperature-checking, spacesuit-wearing SWAT teams. Our arrival in Hangzhou and Zhejiang University brought a whole new level of scrutiny about our health. Since we, thankfully, had been in the country more than seven days once we came to Zhejiang, we were spared the practice that new arrivals to the country have been getting at the University: reporting for daily temperature checks. We are relegated, however, to eating in a special dining room in the company of other westerners, of which there are quite a few here in the International College section of the University, which hosts summer study abroad programs. Our students wryly refer to it as ‘the quarantine room.’ In addition, one of the service agencies with which we were to have worked in Hangzhou has cancelled on having us with them, due to their concerns about H1N1.
If you want to create a little space for yourself as a westerner in this very populated society, just dare to sneeze in public. The Chinese scatter from you like dandelion fluff in a strong burst of air. Why this level of caution? While it may seem like over-reaction (much the way I feel about certain airport security measures, but that’s another topic), one need only remember the devastating impact of the SARS epidemic in China to respect their high level of caution. Deaths from SARS and the government’s denial of any problem during that time resulted in terrible press for the country. China’s density of population, combined with their less than adequate infrastructure to deal with a major infectious outbreak, gives understanding to the prudency they are practicing around H1N1. Given our otherwise close quarters at Zhejiang, ‘the quarantine room,’ by the admission of our Zhejiang host, provides nothing other than ’psychological comfort’ to the Chinese. We have mused what might have been the terrible indiscretion of the young Chinese staff member we see each day in ‘the quarantine room’ whose apparent punishment has been to be relegated to spending all of his working hours serving food to potentially infectious westerners. . .
The "booties" we wore as a precaution while visiting a DairTELLING OUR STORY
The H1N1 segregation, along with the reputation that westerners are excessive drinkers (created by the unfortunate prior behavior of guests from some other study abroad programs) made for a somewhat somber arrival to Zhejiang for our group. Coupled with these distancing factors has been the fact that ours is the only program here that rather than attending classes each day is engaged in ‘service learning,’ a concept new to the Chinese and somewhat confounding even to our fellow westerners. George, our primary host at Zhejiang, said that when he was first told about a service-learning group coming, he googled the term to see what it meant. Under Chinese sources, he found nothing. ‘So I looked under English sources’, he said, ‘and there I found plenty.’ This is how new the concept is in China and how interesting the opportunity we have to be an example of service learning at work.
Ever the diligent diplomats, in a group reflection session on our second night in Hangzhou, our students proposed offering a presentation about the mission and methodology of our trip for those outside our program.
What resulted was a seminar prepared and led by our group to leaders of Zhejiang’s International College, Chinese students in the ‘3 Plus 1’ program (who will have three years of their education at Zhejiang and one at NC State) and faculty from our own campus who are here with the NC State Hangzhou study abroad program. Their content included history of the Caldwell / China Fellows and explanation of the theory and practice of service learning. They explained the academic work in which they have been engaged, which gives intellectual grounding to the cultural experiences provided by our hands-on engagement in the community.
The group shared their reading list, the outline of our seminars and the model of our trip writing project, and read aloud excerpts from their journals and essays. Accompanied by PowerPoint slides, they shared photographs of each of the four service-learning sites were we have worked.
The Chinese were fascinated and impressed with what our group is undertaking, and our own NCSU faculty gave validating feedback to our group. Perhaps one of the most telling responses was made by one of the Chinese students, Marshall, who told of accompanying us to our service sites as an interpreter and in the process becoming quite taken with the new experiences he was having as a volunteer. He now dreams of this kind of community engagement when he comes to NC State for the coming year. Our group has promised to make him an honorary Caldwell for the coming year and to include him in the various projects in the Raleigh community where they are volunteers.
“SHOWING UP”
It has become one of the mantras among Caldwell students. “Showing Up” is perhaps the most important aspect of offering service. “Showing Up” means that simply valuing enough the lives of others to invest in spending time with them can be the most significant contribution that service volunteers make. We don’t believe in showing up with any agenda to ‘help’ or to ‘fix’ (the typically American perspective); rather we show up with an attitude of respect for how a local community is addressing their social issues. We show up to work alongside and to learn from and with them. Service learning is a reciprocal process. Frankly, “showing up” matters a great deal as well in places where the option to travel outside of where residents are is simply not an option. Economic or political reasons aside, it is the same. Our coming (as long as it is with equal regard) is validating; this is a place and a people where we want to invest and learn from. It also provides a broader world to those who are prohibited from having that broader world through the opportunity of traveling firsthand. Yes, we must contend with the responsibility that comes with having the means to be the ones who can travel, and to show up with the awareness and humility of that privilege.
Through our connection to Home Sweet Home by way of Jim Arnold, meeting needs of the handicapped became the social issue around which our service-learning efforts in China are centered. In Hangzhou, we have been spending our days across a number of projects. While our practice on other trips has been to immerse deeply in one project for at least two weeks, this trip has been about showing up for a number of ventures, all related to understanding and serving the special needs of the handicapped. This broad versus deep approach has been dictated by the norms of the agencies we have served and the fact that we are in a community where Americans showing up to volunteer is still a somewhat peculiar notion.
Here’s what we have been doing:
- Working at the Morning Star Rehabilitation Center for Children with Autism
- Attending an art show by handicapped artists arranged especially for our group by the Commission of the Handicapped People and spending time with the artists
- Accompanying and aiding in transport for a tour of West Lake by a group of lower-limb-handicapped people
- Working at a rural school (three hours outside of Hangzhou) along with volunteers from the Hangzhou Charity Federation
- Meeting with members of the Hangzhou Charity Federation for dialogue about the differences and similarities in attitudes about service across our two cultures.
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